Having shared the roles of the scientist and his creature in Frankenstein, Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch now share the accolade of Best Actor for their performances in this year’s Evening Standard Theatre Awards, announced tonight (20 November 2011) in a black-tie ceremony held at London’s Savoy Hotel.

Miller and Cumberbatch, who’d been shortlisted separately, beat off competition from Charles Edwards for the Globe’s Much Ado About Nothing and Bertie Carvel for his musical role in the RSC’s Matilda, just transferred to the West End this month.

Best Actor was one of two joint awards presented tonight. Playwright Richard Bean shared the Best Play prize with himself – being recognised for both his climate change piece The Heretic at the Royal Court, and his 1960s-set adaptation of Goldoni farce One Man, Two Guvnors, which premiered at the National and opens this week at the West End’s Adelphi Theatre ahead of a Broadway transfer next year.

Meanwhile, Sheridan Smith, who was nominated for Best Actress last year for Legally Blonde, which won her Best Actress in a Musical honours at both the Whatsonstage.com and Olivier Awards, this year scooped the same prize for her performance as a nearly-widowed countess in Trevor Nunn’s revival of Rattigan’s Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Last week she was given Equity’s Clarence Derwent Award, designed to honour supporting roles, for the same performance.

Smith triumphed over competitors including Kristin Scott Thomas, who returned to the West End this year’s in Harold Pinter’s Betrayal. But the judges wouldn’t let Scott Thomas go home empty-handed either, presenting her with the non-shortlisted Lebedev Special Award.

Other big winners tonight included: Mike Leigh, named Best Director for helming the world premiere of his new play Grief at the National; Tim Minchin and Dennis Kelly’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Matilda for the RSC, named Best Musical; and actor Kyle Soller, named Outstanding Newcomer for his performances in The Glass Menagerie and Government Inspector at the Young Vic and The Faith Machine at the Royal Court.

The Court’s third award of the night was for Most Promising Playwright, which went to Penelope Skinner for The Village Bike, premiered in the Royal Court Upstairs. The Most Promising Playwright prize, named in memory of former Standard editor Charles Wintour, carries a £3,000 cheque for the winner, and £1,000 cheques for the other shortlisted authors.

The Evening Standard Awards are the first in the annual awards season. They’re followed by our own Whatsonstage.com Awards, the “theatregoers’ choice”, for which shortlists are announced at our launch party next Friday 2 December 2011 following theatregoer nominations throughout November, the Critics’ Circle and the Laurence Olivier Awards.

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